At season’s end, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville called restricted free agent Andrew Shaw an “irreplaceable” kind of player.

The Hawks are going to have to find a way to replace the irreplaceable.

The Hawks didn’t take long to make a big splash at the NHL entry draft Friday night by trading Shaw to the Canadiens for a pair of second-round picks in this year’s draft. The move elicited an audible gasp inside the First Niagara Center as Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the deal, which ends Shaw’s time in Chicago after five seasons, including two Stanley Cups.

At least Hawks fans will always have “shin pads,” Shaw’s memorable cry after he scored the winning goal off his shin pads in triple overtime of Game 1 in the 2013 Stanley Cup Final.

Shaw was a fifth-round pick in the 2011 draft and quickly won over the Hawks and fans with his physical and determined style of play. He scored a career-high 20 goals in the 2013-14 season and is coming off a season in which he had 14 goals and 20 assists.

“We always like to have ‘Shawzy,’ ” Quenneville said Friday just hours before the Hawks traded Shaw. “Players are in some situations where contracts need to be signed and his importance, contributions we’ve seen over the years has been pretty amazing for us.”

Now Shaw’s talents will be on display in Montreal. Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin knows Shaw well, having scouted him while working in the Hawks front office.

Entering the weekend, it seemed as if the Hawks, who are crunched against the salary cap, had to choose between keeping Shaw and center Marcus Kruger, whom the team signed to a three-year extension worth approximately $3.1 million per season in March. Kruger was on the trading block this weekend as well.

Shaw was likely to command more money than Kruger and more money than the Hawks were willing to pay to keep him. The Hawks now have three picks in the second round of this season’s draft.

This is the second big deal the Hawks have made this month after trading Bryan Bickell and his $4 million cap hit to the Hurricanes, along with the promising Teuvo Teravainen, the price the Hawks had to pay to unload Bickell. The cap, which rises only $1.6 million to $73 million next season, certainly has put the pressure on the Hawks. A TSN report said the cap only going up to $73 million killed any chance of the Hawks re-signing Shaw.

Losing Teravainen and now Shaw, both versatile forwards, was the price the Hawks had to pay to give extensions to Kruger, center Artem Anisimov and defenseman Brent Seabrook, each of whom got at least a $1 million raise.

By dealing Shaw, a league source said the Hawks may be in play now to re-sign winger Andrew Ladd. Ladd can command near top market value but said after the season he’s at a point in his career when he values situation and winning more than money. Ladd is an unrestricted free agent and is coming off a contract that paid him $4.4 million per season for the last five seasons.

But Friday, the Hawks had to swallow hard again in the name of the salary cap.

“(Shaw) is one of those players that you appreciate and he’s so versatile and the intangibles jump off the page,” Quenneville said.

But now the Hawks will write their next chapter without Shaw.

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Twitter @ChristopherHine